


Scattered Tales

by corsakitsune (camakitsune)



Series: The Servants of the Gods [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Ambiguous Ages, Ficlet Collection, Gods, Immortals, M/M, Prompt Fic, Sexually Suggestive, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-07
Updated: 2018-10-07
Packaged: 2019-07-27 16:01:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16222478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camakitsune/pseuds/corsakitsune
Summary: Collected ficlets written to fill inktober prompts, mostly focusing on Sarhahn and the other lesser immortal he trained, Alaban.





	1. Restrained (T)

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all, thanks for reading! You can take this as an exploration of the lore, backstory, and sidestories of the characters in the universe I'm developing in this little series. Some of these ficlets will be developed and worked into later multichapters, some will never be polished up, but I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A snippet of Sarhahn's early battles in getting humans to submit to the gods.

"We got him!"

"Go, go, go!"

Timur dashed up from the wall alongside Bikhar, both following their scout who sighted the creature. Up ahead, the so-called immortal scrambled to loosen the snare around his legs and tail. His face was obscured by his long hair, as he made no attempt to turn and face the approaching men.

The two at front descended on him. Timur watched them wrest him prone, arms held behind his back and face to the rocky earth.

"Tie him!"

The creature kept struggling with all his might as Timur retrieved the spool of rope he carried around him. But it was as the rumor said - that murderous half-bird had only the strength of a man, and the two were enough to subdue him. Timur secured his forearms together and cut the line of rope.

"He's tied."

All three backed from their quarry. As he thrashed in his restraints, Timur noticed how distant he was from the mental image of a roaring giant impervious to harm. In fact, Timur might have even called him small.

He grunted and fell slack on the ground, realizing that his struggle was useless. He tossed his hair back and lifted his body as much as it would allow to glare at his assailants. His features weren't fully distinguishable in the little predawn light around them, but Timur detected something that somehow made him grateful for this fact.

"Not gonna beg us to release you?" Bikhar asked.

"There's no point. Your kind is quite stupid, but I give you some credit."

Bikhar reacted swiftly. His foot planted closer and he swung his fist at the captive - but the hook only knocked him off-center, and his glower stayed fixed in place.

"Maybe too much credit," he taunted from the ground.

"It's no use," Timur reminded Bikhar. "You'll do more damage to yourself like that. Besides, he's the one stupid enough to get caught, isn't he?" He regarded the creature, arms folding as he sized him up. "As for you, how's your sense of self-preservation? We'd let you go if you'd run along to that big bad beast and tell it to stay off us."

"That 'beast' is your new god. And your killing weapons are useless against both of us."

Timur drew close again, once more drawing rope. "We may not know how to kill you yet, but we can give you a hell of a time instead."

The immortal watched him tie a noose. "If your goal is to itch my neck, you have the perfect tool for the job."

"You're thinking we're just gonna hang you, right?" He lifted the creature's head by his long hair to slip the loop to his neck. "But the noose is just for fun while the city wakes up to us dragging your ass to where we're going."

"And oh, _please_ tell where that is," he asked with sarcastic wonder.

"A little place we call the scar. Long, narrow rift, sheer drop. Geysers run all along that thing. And you get to be our test subject on whether or not we can cook you demons in it." He opened his hands. "If you don't feel cooperative, that is."

He looked down at his arms as he tested his restraints one more time. They held fast, and he returned his gaze to Timur. His smile left the captor's stomach sour.

"I'll remember your faces while I'm down there."


	2. Worst fear (T)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tocal, a jumping spider god, maintains ties between humans and gods. She has some skeletons in her closet.

At the time, Tocal had to ignore the dread creeping into her psyche from one of her contracts - she was in the middle of bestowing Seofen's connections to one of his people when it happened, and they were notoriously demanding with their schedules. It might have just been a disagreement between neighbors, or some god wielding ill will to warn a misbehaving city.

It festered on her as she worked. It was nothing, she told herself. It could have been Seofen himself trying to ward off a blundering sea god, or Vatt quibbling over boundaries yet again with her neighbor, or...

She abandoned the web she spun from human to deity. This fear, this hate tainting her attention - this curse she found was unknown to her. A strange god wished to harm one of her contractors, and it struck.

She leaped from the ceiling, all feet planting simultaneously on the floor below. Eight legs skittered her past the threshold of her den and into the stairway connecting it to the lower levels of the temple.

The only gods Tocal did not know were feral gods.

A feral god attacked.

She didn't know all of the feral gods, but they knew her. They knew what she did. Had one of them finally decided to do something about it?

She stopped. It was the guardian of her temple who had been attacked. Someone was trying to reach _her_.

Tocal stayed still. She couldn't detect the presence of a god anywhere near her. Then how did they come close enough to injure Alaban?

They had to send someone. Who? Who betrayed her?

She retreated.


	3. Ghost (T)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarhahn agreed to take a contract with a feral snake god. On the way, he encountered when was left of a formerly worshiped god.

Sarhahn would never admit to having a ranking of his most and least favorite contractors - professional courtesy and the jealousy of gods and all. That didn't mean he didn't have one. And the snake, his first feral contractor ever, was on a fast track to the bottom of that list.

The disgraced forest cat was more than "out of Sarhahn's way," as the snake had put it. That half-corporeal presence in the air could only mean that the eyra had fallen in his battle with the snake, and he wasn't intending to pass peacefully.

"You," its voice spoke to Sarhahn from the cursed region in front of him. "You smell like that damned snake." The former god of the Zicalan people had no warmth to welcome him with.

Sarhahn stood far back from the cursed region where the eyra died and the snake's malice held tight to keep him dead. To call it a clearing would be too flattering a description - bare earth and dead trees and unfortunate animals lay frozen in time there. The curse was so thorough as to prevent the corpses from even rotting for however many years they had been here. No new life fed on this death.

A true curse was a sterile thing.

"Why have you come here contracted with the likes of her?" the eyra snarled.

"She has asked me to ensure your people stay from her land," he answered honestly. "She didn't tell me your death was likely the reason for it."

"Come here."

Sarhahn swallowed. "Why?"

"Come here so I can know who is invading my land."

He submitted to the god's demands. If he demonstrated no ill will of his own toward this godly specter, he should be able to go free - and what was the worst a dead god could do to a living immortal?

Sarhahn stepped forward to the locus of the curse, to its very edge, without stepping into the dead region. 

"Is that all?"

The vestiges of the cat's power seized him without an answer. Sarhahn lurched forward, into the dead area with its pull. To the smothered god, he was a pinhole into life, and the eyra breathed through him with no concern whether he tore the edge of that hole apart.


	4. Slit Throat (M)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sarhahn taught Alaban their line of work for the gods. It wasn't a smooth process for the trainee. (Warning for blood, killing, and violence)

"You're not looking away."

Alaban remained fixated on the body in front of them, exactly as Sarhahn had observed.

"That's good."

"Is it?" Alaban asked. He thought he should look at Sarhahn. But he couldn't take his eyes off the human dying in front of him. He couldn't look anywhere except at that pouring gash across the mortal's neck.

"The more you take in the sight, the sooner you'll get used to it. This is what your training is for, after all."

Alaban was finally able to look from the man's slit throat to his face. Something like shock stayed fixed to it, even as his body lurched with  blood escaping everywhere it wasn't meant to be.

"There has to be some other way for us to do this," he finally said to Sarhahn.

His assigned mentor had given him time to adjust before - with using their god's borrowed magic, with learning how to use a weapon, with even merely speaking to humans. Surely this could be negotiated.

But Sarhahn only watched that same dying man as if he were a mildly interesting bug twitching weaker and weaker in death. He wiped a dark spatter of blood from his cheek with a clean portion of his sleeve.

"There are plenty of ways to kill a human," he answered, returning his gaze to Alaban. "If you don't like it, I suggest doing it quickly."

The body stilled. Blood kept leaking out of him, almost black in the low light of the temple torches. Was this method a quick one?

Alaban shook his head. "That's not what I meant. These humans - they're small and weak. What could they possibly do to a god that's worth killing them over?"

"Their worship is their god's strength. Blaspheming against their god is a threat to her very life."

"He was one man," Alaban snapped, four arms spreading in his rising frustration.

Sarhahn recoiled, brow furrowing. Alaban backed off as well. He didn't mean to offend his teacher.

"I can't do this." 

Footsteps at the end of the room drew his attention. He looked to the doorway, but no one came forth. The keepers of the new temple had been present for Sarhahn's deliberation of the man's guilt and punishment. They were likely growing anxious over the need to clean up after this dirty work. Somehow, Alaban didn't expect that disposing of a corpse was a task one quickly desensitized to.

Sarhahn was unmoved by the appeal and by the sound of the clergy checking in on them.

"Alaban."

He didn't look at Sarhahn.

"You have the right to refuse any contract." He crouched next to the man and began to wipe his knife on his victim's pant leg. "However, if you choose to be entirely useless to the gods, they'll destroy you without blinking." Once satisfied with the cleaning, he looked at Alaban again. "The only guidance I can give you away from that fate is to stop you from being useless."

Alaban remained as still as he had been, refusing to look directly at Sarhahn, or the dead man, or the clergy watching them from the darkness beyond the room. This means of handling disobedience was... was it wrong? What did that word even mean for them? Why was it the only word that came to mind?

Sarhahn sat - a safe distance on the floor from the growing pool of blood - and laid his knife next to him. "It's not easy," he said. "It's difficult at the beginning. For everyone." Alaban finally looked at him, but his expression was guarded. "I don't know why, it just is. But you'll get used to it. _If_ you keep on."

Alaban glowered at him, but to no effect. "Maybe I don't want to get used to it," he hissed.

"I don't care. Break their neck, behead them, slit their throat if you want to end it quickly. But the next kill is yours. It's not up for discussion."

He had to get out of there. Alaban stormed toward the door, leaving Sarhahn behind with the product of his work.


	5. Bruised (M)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every now and then, one of the boys took an injury during Alaban's training. (Warning for description of a generally painful experience)

Sarhahn leaned against the wall of some building, arm held tight to his stomach. He didn't remember walking to the wall, but here he stood nonetheless - or dropped himself, to be accurate.

"What the hell was that?" Alaban asked, hovering closer than Sarhahn would have liked.

He tried to scoot away, but only succeeded in irritating the pain enough to tear a grunt out of himself. "A gunshot." He made another pained sound. "They've made them more effective."

"There's no blood," Alaban kept fretting. "What did it do?"

Sarhahn hissed as he moved to unfasten his achkan. It would be easier to show Alaban than tell him, and he needed to see the damage himself. "Where did they go?"

Alaban's head snapped around. "I don't know." Sarhahn peered about them as well and only found people fleeing the sound of the gunshot. Their targets must have long disappeared into the confusion of the crowd.

He succeeded in opening the jacket and looked down. A dark spot marked the impact of the bullet, surrounded by black discoloration that spread far beyond the center.

Alaban's jaw went slack as he stared down at the bruise. The sharp teeth further into his mouth menaced Sarhahn even from their semi-hidden location. He found it easiest to avoid looking at his mouth for the moment. "They're like arrows. But they're smaller and faster." He took a ragged breath, and his body protested the movement. "More lethal."

He decided the demonstration was over, and he yanked at their contractor's healing power.

Alaban flinched as Sarhahn released another grunt. "Are you in danger? What do I do?"

"I'm in no danger," he answered, dropping his head and covering his bruise with his arms again. "But I need to heal."

Along with the magic that poured into his wounds came a wish that penetrated his thoughts. Everyone who opposed their contractor needed to die, it insisted.

And he agreed. He was proof right now that these humans were to be tamed in the best of times and dispatched when they refused to submit.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Alaban's voice cut through his thoughts. Sarhahn looked up to find Alaban reaching for him.

His hand found his knife and drew it to slice at his trainee. It effectively warded him off with a flinch, and he glanced down to inspect the white scratch against the dark of his hand.

"Go find them," Sarhahn ordered. Adrenaline alone kept his knife clenched in his shaking hand.

"You're hurt," Alaban insisted.

"I'll heal. _Go._ "

Alaban took a breath, but abandoned whatever he was going to say. He nodded and turned away to find a starting point of pursuit.

Sarhahn blinked against the foggy, almost intoxicating trace of their god's will settling with his own thoughts. It was easier this way. The gods' malice protected him from his own weakness, the same weakness that permitted him to hesitate - and get left with this injury.

He gave a last glance to the bruise, decided that the worst of the damage was fixed, and pushed off the wall to find where Alaban went.


	6. Ten years older (M)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Alaban grew comfortable working around humans, he interacted with certain ones of them more intimately. Sarhahn wasn't blind to what Alaban was substituting for. (Warning for ambiguous/suggested attraction to underage characters)

Somehow, focusing on business had become too much to ask of Alaban.

Sarhahn resigned to this fact when he walked into Alaban's room to find the church servant standing closer to him than was polite, all shy smiles and hushed words. They had been at it all evening, ever since the boy came to serve them during the food offering.

The young man – Sarhahn never bothered asking his name – gave him a glance just long enough to be considered defiant when he walked in to discuss work. Sarhahn made his best effort to only be as sour as he always was when Alaban was too kind to humans. This wasn't his first time witnessing Alaban's closeness with them, after all.

Alaban noticed anyway. He refrained from saying anything about it until after telling the boy an overly-optimistic "I'll see you later tonight." 

Alaban had been burned by humans before. Sarhahn had nothing new to say to him as far as that fact went.

But he wondered. If that boy was ten years older, would Alaban be so interested in him? His type was painfully obvious. Small. Young-faced. Blunt, feisty, opinionated, or any combination of the three. The prettier the better.

"What's it to you?" Alaban snarled at the mention of this fact.

Sarhahn didn't make it about himself. He was too old to get caught up in romantic jealousy. He stayed pragmatic – if Alaban was too readable, too trusting, and too kind, that only made him easier to manipulate. Humans were ignorant, but they were crafty, and they only grew craftier as they interacted with immortals.

Alaban didn't buy it. If Sarhahn was worried about a night's fling pulling a knife on him in private, time must have made him paranoid.

Sarhahn protested. There was little to fear from a physical attack from a human - on that, he agreed. But he would have been remiss to neglect the state of his former trainee's poor tender heart.

"My tender heart is just fine," Alaban had told him. If that was the case, there was nothing more to say on the matter. Alaban was the one who made this into a whole discussion anyway.

They discussed the ministers' reception of Qurebagh's demands. The god gave a prolific list of expectations for her people, and was notorious for her level of involvement.

Sarhahn expected trouble warranting close watch for the next few months, possibly more. The ministers seemed caught off guard by Qurebagh's wishes.

Alaban expected only minor hiccups that the humans should be able to sort out themselves. Sarhahn wasn't surprised he didn't catch anything that could be construed as hidden unwillingness or false compliance. He was too busy making eyes at the teenager who filled his cup the entire time to notice the fine details of how the leaders navigated the conversation.

Jealousy might have been the issue. Sarhahn scoffed immediately. Humans were just as mystified by him on first sight as they were by Alaban – the only difference was that Sarhahn didn't entertain it.

That didn't address what Alaban meant: Sarhahn being jealous of the church boy. That he simply wished to be in that particular human's place, soaking up all the affectionate attention Alaban had to share. Alaban wasn't putting it past him, especially not with how receptive he had been lately to tagging along on entirely leisurely travels.

There was a word for what Alaban was doing, Sarhahn remembered. "Projecting." Sarhahn wasn't the one singling out the humans who most resembled his partner every time they visited a domain together, after all.

Alaban wondered why Sarhahn was so interested in that fact as to keep bringing it back up. It should have been a perfectly fine arrangement to keep him from being inconvenienced by Alaban's wants.

If that _wasn't_ a perfectly fine arrangement, he should say so.

It was stupid. Alaban already had his answer to the problem. Sarhahn didn't care to have a heart-to-heart while Alaban's toy waited at the door for him to finish and leave.

"If that's the problem," Alaban told him, "then you should give me a reason to turn him away when he comes back."

As it turned out, Alaban had an easier time tossing out humans than he let on. That was fine – the young man would probably fuss at first, but when he grew ten years older and gained ten years of hindsight, the outcome would become inevitable in his eyes.


End file.
